A diverse team brings diverse perspectives, and diverse perspectives help us build better products and more fully deliver on our mission.

We are focused on building diabetes software, so certainly hiring people with a personal connection to diabetes is a big win. But people not living with diabetes also have great perspectives on building great software, building great processes and being a great company. Diversity also includes gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, political views and much more. By having a broad variety of perspectives we can build better software and a better company that meets the needs of the diverse population we serve.

Sourcing Candidates

Building a great team starts with attracting great candidates, and there are three channels we can use to attract candidates: referrals, outbound recruiting, and inbound interest. We keep all three channels open, but we are thoughtful about the biases that result from each channel so that we can make them work for our team-building goals and values.

Open positions are posted at tidepool.org/jobs. We’ll talk about open positions at our All Hands meetings.

Referrals

Referrals from people who already work at Tidepool are one of the best signals we can get about whether or not a candidate will be successful at Tidepool. Tidepool employees understand Tidepool’s needs and what it’s like to work at Tidepool, and their relationship with the candidate means they know a lot more than we can learn during a typical interview process.

In order to get good referrals, everyone needs to know which positions are open, know how to start the recruiting process, have time to search their network, and feel aligned with the company's mission and priorities. We expect everyone to go through their networks looking for and thinking about candidates. Employees will do initial outreach to interesting connection, which will give us a good space to talk about how we start the recruiting process.

We do not offer referral bonuses. We feel that participating in the recruiting process is a part of everyone's job and should not need additional incentives.

The danger with referrals is that we are most likely to refer candidates who are like us, which can result in a homogenous team instead of the diverse one we want to create. We should emphasize diversity as a priority in our referral lunches and also search the local networks we are involved in. We should also continue to look for other ways to offset this bias on an organizational level.

Outbound Recruiting

For every position open at Tidepool, there should be a single person who is in charge of the recruiting efforts for that position. While we are small, this will likely be the CEO. This starts with writing the job description and publishing it on tidepool.org/jobs, but also means proactively searching for people who might be a good fit, looking for pools of candidates that we can recruit from, and asking friends for introductions to promising candidates.

It is critical that we find talent pools of diverse candidates to pull from, and that our outbound recruiting intentionally target underrepresented groups. If we are recruiting from universities, we need to be careful about which schools we draw from. If we are pulling people from other companies, it’s important that we are thoughtful about the location and industry biases of those companies.

Inbound Applications

All of our job openings and descriptions will be posted on tidepool.org/jobs, and some will be posted on other sites where we can advertise our open positions. Careful thought should be given to where we post job openings, as traditional boards have homogeneous audiences. We will also have people reading about Tidepool through our blog and social media, developers working with our tools and participating in our community, and a broad audience hearing about Tidepool through news or using the product.

Inbound applications give us the highest number of candidates that are outside of our personal networks, but also have the lowest initial filter because no one at Tidepool is making any judgment about the candidate before they enter our pipeline. Because of the light filter, it can be tempting to dismiss these candidates, but an inbound application is a strong signal that the candidates believe in what we’re doing at Tidepool. This means that a smaller percentage of candidates from a broader pool will progress through our interview funnel. Regardless, we still need to treat inbound applications with respect.

Every inbound application should receive a response from the Tidepool team within 3 days so that they feel heard and like they were able to reach us personally.

More Hiring Information

More information about our hiring processes can be found here in Confluence / Employee Resources / Hiring.Inequality and exclusion are the defaults of industries like technology and healthcare. Without intentional effort, we will inherit those failings and worsen the problem. Given that one of our values is “fight the default of exclusion” we believe building a diverse team is a moral imperative. We want to build a better product and a better business, by bringing different perspectives to the table. We look for voices unlike our own because they help us grow.

Tracking Candidates

We use SmartRecruiters as our Applicant Tracking System to manage open positions and candidates in the pipeline. In order to prevent "anchor bias" when reviewing candidates, SmartRecruiters does not allow you to see the notes and rating from other interviewers before you post your own.

The hiring manager for the position and the VP of People partner to make sure all candidates have a smooth experience interacting with Tidepool.

Sourcing Candidates

There are a number of channels we use to reach candidates: they each have pros and cons, so we aim to have a healthy balance of them to ensure we attract great and diverse candidates and doing so in a cost-conscious manner. Here are some of the channels we have used:

• Referrals: we promote our job openings internally and encourage Tidepoolers to share our job openings with their networks. Since we believe that helping build a great team is part of everyone’s job, we do not offer referral bonuses. We also realize that our networks tend to “look like us”, which might lead to less diversity.

• Social Media: we promote our job openings on our social media channels.

• Conferences: events where our team members speak or participate provide opportunities to source talent that is aligned with Tidepool’s mission.

• Nonprofits partners: we have worked with groups such as YearUp, which focuses on training young minority adults to help launch their careers.

• Job Boards: through SmartRecruiters (our Applicant Tracking System), our job openings get publicized in job aggregators such as LinkedIn, Indeed, ZipRecruiter, etc.

• Recruiters: on rare occasions, we work with recruiters to help us expand our candidate base for mission-critical job openings.

Screening Candidates

Once we have received applications from candidates, we screen them. We want to make sure that we don’t waste anyone’s time (candidate or interviewers) if the candidate is not a good fit for the role and/or clearly doesn’t exhibit the right attributes to succeed at Tidepool.

This time is meant to get to know the candidate and let them ask questions about Tidepool and the position. This interview should also focus on selling Tidepool and recruiting promising candidates, as this is their first personal contact with Tidepool and their desire to work here will be formed in this meeting.

The following attributes (also known as core competencies) are related to our core values. Evidence of these is explored as part of the screening stage, and constitutes a foundation for screening questions:

1. Maker Mindset: what Tidepool is doing is bold and disruptive. So, it’s no coincidence we have Tidepoolers who love creating all sorts of things and think outside of the box to come up with new ways of overcoming challenges. Examples of people that exhibit this mindset include: nonprofit leaders, community organizers, activists, entrepreneurs, open-source advocates, podcasters, and broadly speaking, makers of anything.

2. Radically Candid: we value people who are not afraid to speak their mind, but always do so in a constructive and collaborative way. At Tidepool we aim to practice Radical Candor. Being Radically Candid means that you care about the other person, challenge them directly, and invite the other person to do the same.

3. Transparent and Honest: we don't keep secrets internally. We openly share with the team details about our financials, deal status, and more. We also want people to be transparent in admitting mistakes, and share what they learned, so others can learn and improve. Externally, we share our source code, regulatory quality system documents, processes, project planning, and more. We keep very few secrets, typically only if it is required by an agreement with a partner, or as we are protecting user data.

4. Embrace Remote Working: this is less of an attribute, but more of a requirement. Since Tidepool is a completely remote organization (regardless of pandemics), we want to grow our team with others who either love working remotely, or are open to learning and capable of thriving in a remote environment.

Interviewing Candidates

After a candidate is screened, if the screening is successful, they talk to 2-3 other team members for 45-60 minutes each. These interviews can be done individually or jointly. The hiring manager makes recommendations for what each interviewer should focus on, and at least two people on the panel focus on team fit and working remotely.

For technical candidates, at least two technical interviews should be done, focusing on specific project work as well as high-level thinking. The process for handling the interview process is discussed in detail here (internal document only).

Additionally, we are very proud of our Internship Program and our Apprenticeship Program, both of which have been a source of extraordinary talent to feed into the Tidepool ranks over the years.

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